Song of Solomon chapter 4. I'd like to look at the last
verse of chapter 4. I was thinking, as Brother Scott was speaking in his prayer unto our Lord,
he asked for the blessing that the Lord would bless his church. And you know, I began to think what a tremendous and indescribable
blessing we have this evening to be able to be here. I thought, as I thought on that
statement, I thought, what would we have
in this town if the Lord did not maintain a church in
this place? What would we have? We wouldn't
have anything. Something would have to be done. You think of the miracle of God's
grace that He maintains a place right here where we can come
together. I thought, what a blessing. He's maintained it and He's continuing
to maintain it. just praying and asking the Lord
to keep your body maintained. I know this. His body shall be
maintained. But I do know that there are
places that at one time He was pleased. I can look in Scripture
and see that there was a church one time at Ephesus. There was
a church at Philadelphia. There was a church, you know.
And in time, the Lord, in His providence, removed it. Boy, what a blessing we've got. Let's be mindful not to take
that for granted that we've got a place. We've come together. What a blessing. Alright. Awake, he said, in verse Verse
16 of the Song of Solomon 4, Awake, O north wind, and come
thou south. Blow upon my garden. This is what he's talking about
right here. This is the Lord speaking in this portion right
here. He is speaking and saying concerning
His Spirit. blow on my garden." That's what
I prayed, Lord, be pleased to do tonight. Lord, blow on your
garden. Blow upon my garden that the
spices thereof may flow out. And then the bride says back,
let my Beloved come into His garden and eat His pleasant fruits. Tonight we are talking about
the blessing of the Lord on His body, how He maintains her, how
He blesses her, and then how He refreshes Himself in the partaking
of the fruit that He Himself produces. This is a marvelous
thing that we are considering of what is actually going on. Truly, as we considered last
Sunday, we see through a glass darkly how little we perceive
of the miracle of what is actually taking place right here. Here
is the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is bride that He has
everlastingly loved. He has shed His blood and paid
her debt before the unbendable law of God Almighty. That law
that must be bowed to, that must be served. He served it. And here we are tonight. And
I will be the first to say how little I have thought prior to
this moment, and because of the frailty of my flesh, how little,
because of the frailty of my flesh, I realize how thankful
I should be that Almighty God called me out of darkness and
would give me a heart And here He is commanding His Spirit awake. Oh, Northwind! The Bride of Christ
has a heart for His honor, for His desire, and for His pleasure. And she knows that she is what
she is by the grace of God. It is by God's grace. that he
is not silent to her. But he says, Awake! Awake, O north wind, and come
thou south, and blow upon my garden, knowing that the Holy
Spirit, that is, that blessed Spirit that is spoken of in Scripture
as the breath of God, the aspiration of God Himself, the quickening
God, God that calls us out of darkness, the enlivening God,
the sustaining God, teaching God. The Lord told His disciples,
I go to the Father, but I'll send you another Comforter, one
that will teach you things concerning Himself, that which we know,
that which we've heard. And there's been many in this
world that's heard these words proclaimed and never truly heard
them. But when the Spirit of God reveals
to His people the blessed Word, then it's not Word only, it's
power on our garden. blow upon my garden, the enclosed
garden of God Himself. And truly we need the breath
of God Himself from heaven to refresh us, to teach us again
that which I heard last Lord's Day. I need to hear it again. I am so forgetful. I have such
a sleepy attitude that's ever there that haunts me. Blow afresh. If this garden is
to be fruitful, and believe me of ourselves, there is no fruit
produced of ourselves. It is the fruit of God's Spirit. If this garden is to be fruitful,
the wind of the north." He said, blow, awake, awake, O north wind. Open your eye. That's amazing
terminology to me. Awake. Looked it up. That means open your eye. The eye of your mercy. Open your
eye. Awake, O north wind. cold wind which is to us cold,
but for our good. That cold wind of conviction. That cold wind which to us is
chastening. Turn with me to Psalm 147. I
was looking at something a while ago that made me think of this. Psalm 147, verse Let's look at verse 15. Psalm
147, 15. He sendeth forth His commandment
upon the earth. Here's what He's saying. He sends
His commandment on the earth and His Word runneth very swiftly. He giveth snow like wool and
scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. He casteth forth His ice
like morsels. Who can stand before His cold. He sendeth out His Word and melteth
them. He causeth His wind to blow and
the waters flow. He showeth His Word unto Jacob. That is, those that are not consumed. His statutes and His judgments
unto Israel. He is going to speak to His people.
He sendeth forth the cold. When awake, Song of Solomon says,
awake, north wind, and come. These trials and tribulations
that we're going through, they must come. During the cold time
of the year, and the ice gets into the ground and breaks up.
You know what ice does to ground and breaks it up. It's good,
David said, that I've been afflicted. It's good for me. It's good for
you. These things that are sent at
His merciful hand. Awake, O north wind, and come
thou south. That warm wind of His comfort. How merciful He is. How wise
He is. I told you this story before,
but I can remember disciplining my children There were times
that they just had to be disciplined. They knew the rules. This was
the rule. Never for a mistake. Never for
an accident. But for disobedience, every time. Every time. You know the penalty. Every time. Without exception. Come in there and you tell them,
say, listen, I love you. It's going to hurt. You know,
the old scenario, it's going to hurt you more than it hurts
me. They don't believe you. But eventually they grow up.
They do. And you have to chase them. They knew the penalty. And afterwards,
sit them on my knee, hold them, kiss them, and tell them, I love
you. I love you. And I don't like
to do that. Just the thought of having to
do that. But I tell you what, they remember. Gabe told me,
I told you this before, he told me, he said, Dad, he said, best
thing you ever did for me. He said, spank me. Best thing
you ever did. I appreciate it. Oh, awake, oh
north wind, and calm thyself. Blow upon my garden. Oh, what
child! will not truthfully admit that
the hand of loving chastisement and instruction has not been
for his good." That's what God's people say. Thank you. Thank you. Don't leave me to
myself to succumb to the foolishness of my own lust and deceitful
heart. Awake! Blow! Blow, O north wind! That means fan me. Blow. Fan me. Like the embers in a
fire and you take a fan or you blow and you get down and you
want it to flame up. And you get down there and you
fan it or you blow on it. And those embers begin to glow.
This is what it's talking about right there. Blow upon thy garden. Blow upon me. It's only when
we're made to see our frailty and our need of His sustaining
power that we appreciate His mercy. The believer does not
shy away from God's providential dealings with him. He knows. You order all these things. Lord,
I know. Remind me of that. Remind me
of it. I know it. I know it in my head. I know it in my head. I read Romans 8, 28, and I read,
all things work together. All things work together for
good. To them that love God, to them who are called according
to His purpose. I said, oh, I believe that. God
is sovereign in all things. He does all things after the
counsel of His own will. And then you get a phone call.
You know, Dad, this is, you know, oh, awake Northwind and blow
on me. Blow on this garden, my garden,
fruitful garden. Lord, if it's a garden at all,
it's a garden by Your grace, by Your mercy. Lord, it's not
barren. By God's mercy and grace, He
has enclosed this garden. It's the Lord's desire. It's
the Lord's purpose. And He blows. Enclosed. That's what He said it was. A
wise husbandman, the Father, enclosed the garden of the Lord
Jesus Christ In that everlasting, eternal covenant of His grace,
He hemmed her in. Chose her. Chose her to Himself. His people. The Father's people. He chose them. His. And He gave them to the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's what Christ said. He said,
Thine they were. and thou gavest them me, and
I have kept them." Blow upon this garden, the garden that
He purchased. The Lord Jesus Christ shed His
own blood. That's what Acts 20, 28 says. The garden of the Lord is not
a garden by man's wheeling and dealing and ability. If God Almighty encloses a garden,
that garden is kept. He keeps them. He sustains them. The garden of the Lord is that
good ground of that sower that He has sown His Word and broken
up the ground, made it good ground. must be broken up. You know that. You've planted
gardens. Most everybody here has got a
garden or has had one. What do you do? You know how
to prepare. Turn with me to Jeremiah 23.
Jeremiah 23, verse 28. The prophet that hath a dream,
let him tell a dream. He that hath my word, let him
speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat,
saith the Lord? Is not my word like a fire, saith
the Lord, and a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? You know
what kind of a garden would you have if it was nothing but a
solid rock? You say, well, not going to have
much there. Not going to be much of anything. You know what good ground is? Good ground. It's broken rock. Ground up rocks. Ground, ground,
and ground. I was in Alaska a few years ago,
and we were talking about the glacier, this giant glacier that
is moving there in Alaska, and the weight of that glacier. Oh, it told how thick it was,
and this, that, and the other. And the weight of that glacier
moving slowly over the rocks, the mountains, The weight of
that glacier grinding the rocks and ground that rock to such
a fine silt that once it gets within the water, right around
there, it never goes to the bottom. They told us you can take some
of that water right there where that glacier, right there at
the glacier where it grinds it up. You said you take that water
and most of the time the silt would go to the bottom. He said,
it won't even go to the bottom. It's ground that fine. That's
fine dirt. That's black dirt. That's what my dad used to tell
me. That's black dirt right there. Oh, blow! It's not my word like
a hammer that breaks up the rock. And his garden is planted with
the seed of the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Gospel. It
is His Word that's profitable for reproof, for instruction
in righteousness, correction. Blow! Blow on my garden! It's good that the Spirit of
God blow the cold wind, the warm wind. Blow, Lord. You direct
the wind. You know what's good. You do
it. waters this garden by grace and
blesses His Word to their understanding and cultivates it with trials
and afflictions. In every heart that belongs to
the Lord Jesus Christ is a fruitful garden. Flow upon My garden that
the spices thereof may flow out. You know. have herbs and stuff. The best way, how do you smell
them the best? Crush them. Oh, doesn't that smell good? Blow on my garden. There is no
such thing as a barren garden of the Lord. No such thing as
a barren garden. that is produced is the fruit
of God's Spirit. Galatians 5. Galatians 5.22 speaking says,
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance against such there is no law. Actually, descriptions here. The fruit of the Spirit, the
Scripture says, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
and love. I want you to notice something
about the fruit. There are different descriptions, virtues, but there's
one fruit. The fruit of the Spirit is Love,
joy, peace. The fruit that is produced by
the Spirit of God in the garden of the Lord actually can be,
for our understanding, described as attitudes. Attitudes. You know, you talk about serving
the Lord and producing fruit, and you get to thinking, What is the fruit of the Spirit?
Love and joy. These attitudes. There are attitudes
that are produced by the Spirit of God. And actually, these virtues,
if I can call them that, these attitudes are actually broken
down into three avenues or three parts, as you will. The Scripture
sets forth First, the fruit of the Spirit is toward Almighty
God. Love, joy, peace, the fruit of
the Spirit produces in the believer by the blowing of the wind of
His Spirit, the cold north wind and the warm south wind of His
a chastening hand and merciful, sustaining power. It produces
something toward Almighty God. Love. Here is the attitude toward
Him. Not one of fear and dread and
anxiety. A believer. By God's Spirit blowing
upon Him, He truly loves God. Paul said, in my flesh there
dwells no good thing. In my flesh I serve, Jeff, the
law of sin. The law of sin, but with my mind. And there he is speaking of that
new man, that new creation, that new heart. There's a new creation
that is imparted. There's a new nature. There's
a new man, he said, with that new man, that new mind. He said,
I serve. I love the law of God. God's
Word a believer loves. He loves His Word. He sees His
frailty. Without a doubt, He sees His
frailty. But let me ask you, you that
love the Lord. Do you not love His Word? Is
His Word not to you? Life concerning Him. He loves His ways, His will,
His worship. They love His people. The believer
rejoices in God Almighty and His sovereignty, His purpose
and His providence. And the believer is at peace
with God. The fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace. He is at peace with the Lord
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ having been reconciled
back to God by blood. Next is longsuffering and gentleness
and goodness. That is toward others. Here is
our attitude toward those with which we live and work and worship. We love the brethren. By this
shall all men know, you are my disciples. You have loved one
for the other. Longsuffering. Love and joy and
peace toward God in long-suffering and gentleness and goodness. This is our attitude by God's
blowing upon us. By the Spirit of God blowing
upon His garden and bringing forth the fragrance of His spices. Blow on me that the fragrance
of the spices might come out. It's by God's grace that we love
one another. We have a heart for one another. Am I saying that we don't have
things that might bother us? Is there anything that bothers
you about me or me about you? It's just because of our own
pride. We're just prideful. That's all
in the world is, just pride. Go ahead and admit it and get
it over with. Got a problem with somebody? Esteem the other one
better than yourself. Oh my! True faith is patient. It's courteous. It's generous. It's understanding. Graciousness. I heard a dear friend tell me
that one time. He said, a believer can always be gracious. Always. Graciousness is beheld in a believer
by God's grace. Blow upon this garden. He is
one that exhibits the attributes of the Spirit of God, not as
he wished he did. Does anybody here say, I exhibit
long-suffering just as much as I should? No, we don't either.
But I tell you what, they do. God's people love each other.
And why they love them, they'll admit, I don't love you as I
ought. and pray, God, blow upon this
garden, teach me something. Blow on me, O north wind, I need
it. Lord, but sustain me. Keep me from falling. And then
that last group, faith, meekness, and temperance. This is a believer's
attitude within. Faith, meekness, and temperance. He believes God. Again, not as
he wishes he would. He sees as the disciple says,
Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. This is what the believer
truly is inwardly. He's faithful. Well done! You remember that. Now let me
just rest assured, I've said it a billion times. I've said
that before. I've told my kids, don't exaggerate.
I've told you a billion times, don't exaggerate. How many times,
though, have we said this? Faithful, faithful, faithful
in the Lord Jesus Christ only are we faithful in Him, kept
by the power of God. But I'm telling you, God's people
in Him are truly said to be faithful. I know that's so. We said last
Sunday, the Lord was saying to those on His right hand, well
done, thy good and faithful servant. Faithful. If you had
faith as a grain of mustard seed, you'd say, but I tell you what,
to a believer, there is faith there. It's given unto you to
believe. The quality of it is there. Oh, how I see in myself I don't
believe as I ought. Oh, if I could. But Almighty God has imparted
faith. Faith. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. Faith is the evidence of things
that are hoped for. It's the evidence of things that
are not seen. It's a substance. Faith. God's people, by the means
of faith, they behold, they've been justified freely by His
grace. Faith! They believe God. Faith. The fruit of the Spirit. Faith.
Meekness. Temperance. Their self-control. That's what temperance means.
Their self-control. Kept. Kept. Not of themselves. Kept. These virtues describe
the fruit of the Spirit, and they're not produced. by our
efforts, but they're there by God's grace. Oh, blow that the
spice may flow out. And then, having
prayed, the people of God say this, let
My Beloved come into His garden and eat His pleasant fruits The
Lord is His people's Beloved. She is His. He's theirs. He's my Beloved. Let Him come
into His garden. Lord, fellowship with me. That's
what she says. Collectively, yes. But individually,
the believer says, Lord, come to this garden. Come to this
garden right here. Lord, come and fellowship with
me. We come to Him because He has first come to us. Fruit must
be produced. Herein is my Father glorified
that you bear much fruit, so shall you be my disciples. And
the Lord Jesus Christ has revealed His desire to come into fellowship
with those that He has bought and kept and cultivated. And the bride wants His fellowship.
We've said before, the greatest trial that a believer goes through
is the apparent. He said he'd never leave her.
I'll never leave you and I'll never forsake you. But when he
withdraws his hand, and when I say that, I mean when he withdraws
the ability of the believer to perceive His presence. She looks
and doesn't perceive Him. We're going to look at that in
the next chapter. When she just didn't perceive
He was there. again. But whenever He withdraws His
hand of mercy, He does so, and that's a cold wind to her. And
during that time, she says, Lord, come to me. The bride wants His
fellowship, the experience of His love and His presence to
be made known afresh to her. truly desires that which He wisely
sends by the blowing of His Holy Spirit to produce within her
that which He lovingly partakes. He created her. He made her. He made her and He bought her. Redeemed her. And produces in
her that which is pleasing to Him She says, come now. And she continues to say, that's
one of the last things that's said in the book of Holy Scriptures. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Come. The bride says tonight, right
now, you that believe, this is what you truthfully say. Lord, blow upon your garden. Lord, blow on your garden fresh. Almighty physician, wise, wise. A man or woman that goes under
the knife of a physician, there is going to be some pain involved
there. But they know this. Trusting
that physician's ability to be able to do what is for their
best. And the pain that they go through,
the end result. It's health. Well, the believers say this, Lord,
I don't know what to ask for. I'd hate to know, but I had to
make out and direct my day. How would you like to have to
make out your day and pay the consequences of whatever happened
tomorrow? And you work it out, and whatever happens, strictly
if it was your fault, Isn't it comforting to say, Lord, You
blow on my garden and send, Lord, that which is according to Your
will and Your purpose? And I can settle down with that.
I can rest there.